At Adobe MAX last month, I saw several demos of the upcoming Blackberry PlayBook. The PlayBook is RIM's entry into the tablet marketplace, which has seen tremendous success of Apple's iPad and Samsung's Galaxy.
The PlayBook has several things that set it apart from the others, however. The most obvious is its BlackBerry heritage, a feature that makes it immediately appealing to enterprise customers. The PlayBook is much more than a tablet that has a BlackBerry logo on it, however.
Technically, it's a screamer with a 1 GHz dual core processor and 1GB of RAM. Its 1024 x 600 touchscreen responds to at least 4 simultaneous touches, and perhaps more. In addition, its BlackBerry Tablet OS supports both Adobe Flash and Adobe AIR Mobile in addition to Java and other technologies.
I am interested in developing applications using AIR for Mobile, since I've had some experience with AIR for desktop and TV. Fortunately for me, RIM has made it easy to get connected to their developer tools.
In addition, they have a webinar series that puts developers in touch with smart folks who want to help expand the PlayBook developer network.
As an enticement to get people to write and publish PlayBook apps, RIM is offering free PlayBooks to developers who get an app into their AppWorld.
This is great for RIM and for developers, since it gives them the tools they need to build apps for the PlayBook. Also, since it will run AIR apps, I can write an AIR Mobile app that will play on PlayBook as well as Android devices and televisions. I believe that PlayBook and AIR Mobile will be a golden opportunity for developers of entertainment and enterprise apps alike.
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